The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-09-22
IN THE TENEMENTS.
A PECULIAR RACE GROWN UP
UNDER OUR CIVILIZATION.

UNDER OUR CIVILIZATION.
Life in Loathsome Island of Squalor
and Wretchedness--A Most Unhappy
Race of DIen--A Field for the Mission
AIRY.
Father j. o. S. Huntington, in recent
number Of The Forum, publishes startling
article entitled Tenement House Morality"
In this article he shows how well nigh impos-
slble it is for people huddled together in these
contracted man dens to observe the decences
OF life, or even live according to tue loosest
standard of correct conduct.
This article furnishes much information
upon the subject Of which the well dressed
people of the United States are denscly igno-
rant. We have shown a commendable curl
osity in regard to the home life of the Bur
mese. the personal habits of the Hottentot,
the moral status of the Eskimo and the lap
lander. knowledge of these distant peoples
is part Of cur school and church education.
Our information embraces in its comprehen-
sive grasp the people. of the antipodes, but
does not extend INTO the back streets of our
homes cities.
unique and peculiar race of people grown up
under our civilization, and yet not forming a
part OF it, living, as IL were in a loathsome
island of squalor and wretchedness in the
lnldstof surrounding ocean of wealth and
magnficence. These people form colonies by
themselves, which are seldom explored ex-
cept by the landlord and the undertaken
Their habits of life are peculiar and fully as
worthy of study as the habits of the Arabs or
the SoudaueSe They live in dilapidated
wooden buildings, five or six stories high,
ranged on both sides of narrow, treeless alley
ways. Families Of six or seven persons fire.
quently cook, eat and sleep in one room.
They never read a book, and a two cent
newspaper is frequently luxury that their
means will not permit, if by any chance they
know how to read.
A MOST UNHAPPY RACE.
Father Huntington, in the article referred
to, says: "Bodily cleanliness is almost impos.
Sible. Bathrooms are unknown in tenement
houses, and the public baths open only few
months in the year, often afford but fresh op.
portunties for vice. In most families what
little washing is done must be done in the
presence of others, and often all the water
used must be carried up three or four flights
of narrow winding airs" These people eat
their food from bare tables. As there is
seldom enough upon these tables to satisfy
the hunger Of the eaters, meal is frequently
a game of grab, the nimblest and strongest
getting the lions share. The various savage
or semi-civilized tribes of the earth, with
whom our missionaries have made us SO
familiar, are usually happy in their mode OF
living, and manifest no desire to change their
habitat or customs. But these people of
which we are treating now are a most un
happy race of men, and frequently evince
de.ires TO live like the unapproachable Brah
min classes around them. The Pariahs of
India were never known to manifest any such
ambition. Though nominally these American
citizen Pariuhs are free to rise into the higher
orders of caste, yet practically the barriers
are so great they are seldom able to surmount
them. The majority of the people of this
lower caste die in infancy. Many of those
who survive the period of childhood ore car.
ried Oft by malarial diseases in their early
youth, or by contagious developed by their
irregular habits Of life. Those who do not
perish by disease o. suicide give themselves
up to life long melancholy, which is only
alleviated by the free use of the grossest
intoxicants. Suffering under the defects of
intoxicants, many of these people pass only
few intermittent hours of sanity. and these
sane moments are frequently more intolerable
thsn the hours OF their self imposed alcoholic
madness"
The above picture is not overdrawn 1t is |
graphic pen portrayal of large class of
leople that live right among US, under our
municipal laws, and in the center of our re-
publican civilization. 1t is in these slmy
plague spots of our Christian cities that
anarchy breathes the masmal air on which
it thrives, These people o q menace to
our institutions, not premeditatedly or will
fully, but because the conditions under
which they live are subversive of all order
and inimical to all law and governmental
restraint
u is evident that here is a vast field in
which the missionary, the philanthropist and
'ne economist can prohtably make explora-
ton. The cheap tenement house problem is |
one not beneath the dignity of the highest |
1lptesmanShip-S. w. Foss in Boston Globe |